2- Death

The original: Death

New:

You twist in agony, trying to find a position where the pain doesn't radiate through you like the pulse of a heartbeat.  But every movement jerks something out of place, fractures another bone, pierces another muscle.  You squirm under the pounding rain, each drop pure torture and flinch away from the water only to cause yourself more pain.  It's like a never ending cycle, trying to escape the fire racing through your body but every attempt to escape only piling more and more on you.

You draw a breath, ragged in your mouth and nothing but ice in your lungs.  Unfortunately though, the cool air does nothing to sooth you.  You gasp and pant and squirm and hiss out and try to will your insides back into your body but you know...know...

You're dying.

You had crawled out of your home, escaping the rushing rain waters and stretching toward the heavens.  You had no idea of the cruelty of man, you just didn't want to drown as your home filled with mud.  So you reached for the concrete sidewalks, attempting to find a dark little corner to curl up in until the rain stopped.  But then like an angry Thunder God those legs came down, those plastic soles crushing your body, and you felt all at once everything break.  Rib after rib snapped, giving in under the pressure and cutting into the soft tissue they were meant to support and protect.  You were turned from an agile little hunter to nothing more than a ruin in one swift stroke, life horribly unfair in shortness.

Another gasped breath, but you can feel the pain begin to lift away as the cold leeches in.  You know what's coming, it happens to all.  But you never thought it would happen to you, or you would have simply chose to go the other way, take the other path today.  Breathing is harder now.  Feeling is still far too easy, but even that is fading.  If you could close your eyes you would, but things are getting dark anyway...

And you pass on from this world.  A defenseless little garden snake, just looking to escape the rain, and crushed under the sole of someone without a soul.  Beyond recognition, you mangled body will be carried away and gently set out of view, but you won't be there to experience it.  You are already gone.  You are already dead.

But at least two humans will cry for you today.

~Eve